Conventional flight passenger seats for airplanes have a support frame with either a seat area fixedly disposed thereon or a pivoting seat area. In the region of the rear edge of the seat area, a back rest is disposed. In airplanes, the passenger seats preferably form seat rows, wherein two or several adjacently disposed passenger seats or seats may be combined to one seat group supported by one shared support frame. Nowadays, in the case of seats having a pivoting seat area, there may be differentiation among several embodiments. There are models, at which the folding mechanism has to be operated manually in a disadvantageous manner. In the case of automatically pivoting seat areas, it proves to be disadvantageous that, for example, not all seats of a seat group are pivotable, or, on the other hand, elements of a seat which are, for example, required for the folding mechanism, extend into the space cleared due to pivoting in an obstructing manner. Usually, the seat mechanicals are relatively large.
Usually, there is disposed an arm rest at each side of a seat. The seat groups are provided as stiff units for the mounting in the passenger cabins of the airplanes. According to the requirement of the airlines, this may lead to diverse configurations, wherein primarily a maximum seat capacity is strived for.
One disadvantage of a passenger cabin having a large number of seats is that due to the narrow cabin's longitudinal corridors—also called a traffic area or aisle—between the seat rows, boarding and deboarding of the passengers requires a large expenditure of time. Particularly, deadlocks may be generated, when the passengers remain the corridor stowing away hand luggage, for example, in the overhead bins above the seats. Thereby, the corridor is obstructed. Usually, the cabin's corridors are too narrow to enable two flight passengers to pass by one another. Even during cleaning operations a space between the seat rows is hardly accessible.
The ground time between successive flights of an airplane—also called “turn around”—time is of great importance for the cost effectiveness of a commercial aircraft. In spite of a high seat occupancy in the passenger cabin, it is necessary that the traffic area be configured in such a way that a speedy boarding and deboarding of the passengers is allowed for, and that the expenditure of time for necessary ground works is minimized.